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Sweet Sound of Golden Age Pickups

We met country picker extraordinaire Dave Gleason at Deke Dickerson's Guitar Festival in 2012. "These pickups are GREAT. Literally. Very sharp and very deep at the same time. I am sold, they are excellent." Dave gives his Golden Age pickups a sonic workout in this live performance from 2013.

Details

Get the biting twang that helped forge rock, country and blues.Golden Age pickups continue to amaze and impress guitarists. They're a great upgrade for guitars with weak or muddy stock pickups, at a great price. Vintage dimensions allow easy installation in standard bodies.

Golden Age Tele Pickup Set

Clear and crisp. I put them in a Tele kit guitar that I modified heavily. Better tuners, custom wiring, killswitch button, compensated saddles, the works. Good pickups were essential and these are just fine.

Neck pickup is incredible

Neck pickup in my tele died so instead of spending 50 bucks for a rewind (or screw it up myself) i decided to spend 50 bucks on a new pickup and it sounds incredible! this neck pickup is twangy and warm and stratty and full and strong and it sounds really good

not for unwound G's

These pickups are really nice. The best upgrade for the money I have made. BUT! --- Those of you who, like me, play unwound G strings (slinky), your G string will sound much louder than every other string, due to the raised poles on the D & G on the bridge PU. This is really annoying once you notice it. It is absolutely vintage-correct, of course, since in the fifties no one used slinkies, the G was wound with a much thinner core, hence the magnet required a bump in height and therefore response. Notice the D (relatively thin core) sounds natural, and it's magnet is raised. I pushed the magnet rod down a little bit. OK, I hit it with a hammer. Gently. This pushed the copper plate out and down, threatening the coil's connection to ground. NOT RECOMMENDED! I solved my problem, but it was risky. Maybe Stewmac should make that the G pole a little shorter, and sacrifice vintage-correctness for a better, more even response with the strings everybody uses nowadays.

Average

I bought a set of these for my 1st tele build. I was not overly impressed. The neck pickup was muffled and didn't blend well with the bridge pickup. The bridge pickup was edgy without a lot of low end. They had microphonic feedback when pushed with very little overdrive and volume through a very small practice amp. They sounded okay when used with a clean amp setting. They weren't totally bad, just not what I was looking for in a set of pickups. I have bought "similar" pickups that performed better.

Awesome upgrade!!!

I got these to replace some pups in a cheap tele I bought to customise for myself... They were easy to install, were well built and solid, and sound absolutely amazing!!! Definitely worth the tiny price tag :D

Buck Owens Would Be Proud

I just finshed my Telecaster project guitar and for the instrument I installed Stew Mac Golden Age Telecaster Pickups (Neck and Bridge) All I can say is Buck Owens would be proud of the Tele Twang, what a great vintage sound. I used all Stew Mac parts for the internals and I am so proud of the finished product. Thanks Stew Mac, you make great products.

awesome upgrade

I put this pickup in my favorite go-to guitar, a 1996 Mexican Telecaster. I've always loved this guitar and kept it while buying and selling quite a few 'nicer' guitars. This guitar has a humbucker in the neck with a standard Tele bridge pickup. The humbucker was always a tad muddy and bassy, so I decided to put in a Golden Age humbucker, and while at it, why not try a Golden Age bridge? Well, the guitar absolutely sings now. The bridge PU is just so much more dimensional than the stock that I can't believe I waited 16 years to figure it out. It was easily the best $50 I've spent in a long, long time!

Classic vintage sound

I have been working on a tele build project for ages and looked at lots of different pickups. I decided on these because if what they claimed turned out to be true, then For the price there is nothing better. I installed these in my tele which was very easy to do and have been absolutely loving them ever since. These are the best vintage sound on the market in my opinion and the price cannot be beat.

If your thinking about buying these then do it, they will not disappoint.

You get what you pay for!

I went over budget on my Telecaster project and was hoping to put Lindy Fralin pickups on the guitar. I went for the Golden Age mainly on cost and I would say they are worth the money but will probably be replaced in the future. You can't go wrong with these if your expectations are not high. Clean sound, moderate output, well crafted.

Bang>Buck

Installed a set of these (as well as the vintage Tele wiring kit with CTS pots and a brass saddled stewmac bridge) into a '94 50's MIJ Tele. What was once a guitar that I had never played and strongly considered selling is now my favorite player. The tone, twang and spank are the real deal. This guitar just sings now and is very difficult to put down.